


stranger in the mirror, how'd we come so far?

by visixns



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Crack, Domestic Fluff, Hot Mess Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Like a sailor, Plagg is a Little Shit (Miraculous Ladybug), Post-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Tikki Is So Done (Miraculous Ladybug), kinda crack-ish, lots n lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26758741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visixns/pseuds/visixns
Summary: "Marinette, standing confusedly by the door, supposed that all of this was, in fact, fine. It was fine. All dandy and such, when she walked home from the studio at sometime past midnight and directly into two people she very much did not know sleeping in her and Adrien’s bed.It was fine. This was fine."In which the Miraculous Cure suddenly stops working on Marinette, the Dupain-Cheng's find out about their identities, Hawkmoth puts Paris' beloved superhero duo through the wringer, and Plagg and Tikki wake up in their humanized forms fearing what triggered their temporary transformation.A tale of two university students who also happen to be superheroes trying to balance everything, stay sane, and stay alive all at once. It gets difficult.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Plagg/Tikki (Miraculous Ladybug)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 80





	stranger in the mirror, how'd we come so far?

**Author's Note:**

> So in all honesty, I have no idea what this is. It started as a thought experiment, went through several drafts and ideas, and ended as this...story. I hope you all enjoy because this hypothetical was incredibly fun to explore, and I hope that all of you like it!

**Friday  
** **November 8th  
** **00:57AM**

Fine.

She was fine.

Marinette, standing confusedly by the door, supposed that all of this was, in fact, fine. _It was fine._ All dandy and such, when she walked home from the studio at sometime past midnight and directly into two people she very much _did not know_ sleeping in her and Adrien’s bed.

It was fine. This was fine.

“Oh, hey Mari,”

She didn’t turn as Adrien passed by—who had just arrived from a late patrol—but hummed back a low greeting. The groggy cat-boy, intrigued by her silence in place of usual joviality (or at the very least drained kindness), didn’t say much before following her gaze into their room, stifling a shriek (seeing as it was one in the morning) and looking frantically around for an object. She didn’t question for what. A second later something whizzed past her right ear, and Marinette wasn’t sure what exactly he flung at them—she was still very fixated on the red-haired woman shadowed clumsily by the other man, because something about her seemed irrationally familiar—but it seemed to do the trick.

The man, having just been hit in the face with what Marinette could now identify as a pillow from their bedroom chaise, lifted a middle finger and muttered other obscenities that threw both of the superheroes for a big ole’ loop.

“Kid, don’t be rude.” The man yawled, stretching over the (rather gorgeous) woman protectively. Luckily for them, Adrien didn’t really have any other ammunition to chuck. “Tikki’s already tired as it is,”

_…Tikki?_

And that voice. She’d heard that voice one too many times in her midnight sketch endeavors to really forget how it sounded when sleepy and irritated.

See this, _this_ was what broke the poor, tired designer. “Pl- _Plagg_? What the fuck?”

A beat. Two. Three.

“Wait, _Plagg_?”

Poor Adrien, always the last one for the penny to drop. In the space of time it took for him to stop sputtering, the man lifted his head to glare in full force at the two, his face illuminated by the soft hallway glow of the apartment. His features were sharp, jaw chiseled and stubble on his shin, a beautiful afro upon his head. His skin was a gorgeous reincarnation of the midnight sky, and both Adrien and Marinette stilled at the sight of his bright, piercing green pupils. In warning, they glowed under the darkness of twilight, accentuated by his fierce gaze. Marinette was…well…mesmerized, as well as frightened.

(Though, admittedly, Marinette would have to thank whatever deity was available for making sure that in human form, his scleras didn’t translate to black as well. That would’ve been a touch too horrifying at this hour.)

“Plagg,” a muffled voice rose sleepily from the sheets, a hand grappling on the mans arm to pull him back down. “You’re scaring the poor children,”

“Yeah but they’re interrupting our sleep—“

“Correct me if I’m wrong but this could, just perhaps, be because we’re currently _sleeping in their room,_ ”

“And? So what?”

The woman—Tikki, Marinette numbly concluded—sat up, shooting a semi-annoyed and semi-apologetic look at the duo by the door.

“ _So_ that means get up and let the kids go to bed. I’m sure they’re tired as it is.” Then, with a quiet whisper: “…and I’m sure we’re really not helping,”

Mumbling incoherent complaints, the man—Plagg, Adrien corrected himself—shot off the mattress sleepily before grabbing Tikki’s hand and dragging them out, the latter just barely landing a soft kiss on Marinette’s forehead before closing the door behind them.

Suffice to say, neither Adrien nor Marinette slept much that night.

**06:22 AM**

At the literal ass crack of dawn—excuse the language—what appeared to be a still-human Plagg burst into their bedroom, way too energetic for the given time and wildly waving a pan in their face.

“Plagg, what the genuine fuck are you doing?“

“Hey!” There was a slightly teasing, slightly scolding lilt to his deep voice. “We don’t swear in this household, got it? Or else Tikki’ll have to wash your mouth out with soap,”

Adrien shot a confused look at Marinette from under the covers, which the latter reciprocated with her own translation of ?!? written with her eyebrows.

“Anyway, rise and shine kitten! Bug! It’s time for breakfast!”

Quite frankly, all Marinette could really do was sigh, burying her nose deeper into the crook of Adrien’s neck. This time, it was her turn to shoot the middle finger.

“It’s literally not even seven in the morning, Plagg. Kindly fuck off,”

“Soap, bug. _Bitter soap._ I swear we’ll do it. You might even get soap-poisoning, and that really wouldn’t be fun.”

Funny how, when under the spell of sleep, the whole ‘my kwami turned into a human, what do’ equivalent of a system crash troubleshooting function of her brain just sort of…shut down, for lack of a better word. Sleep was a cure to everything, including the shell-shock of your kwamis turning into living and breathing flesh. _Human flesh_.

At the moment, all Marinette knew was that she wanted him out of their room, and she wanted him out quickly.

But unfortunately the kwami of destruction simply winked at her expletives, and Adrien wanted to grab that ridiculously delicious smelling pan and whack Plagg over the head with it. He wasn’t a violent person, but this one fantasy seemed all too tempting at—he took a quick glance at the clock—fucking _six-thirty in the morning._

Amidst Adrien’s contemplations for possibly murdering his kwami, Marinette broke the silence with a different approach: kindness and perhaps a little bargaining.

“Plagg, please leave, I’d _really_ like to sleep—“

“Yeah, yeah, except it’s Friday, meaning you, little bug, have class at eight and you, my kitten, have a business meeting at eight thirty. So get your asses up and into the kitchen in the next ten minutes because if Tikki comes in here, she will not be so kind. And that is _definitely_ a threat.”

Marinette wanted to believe otherwise but for how gentle Tikki was for a kwami, she was also a force to be reckoned with if provoked. And Marinette did _not_ want to be on the receiving end of that provocation. So she sat up, begrudgingly so, and brought her blonde-haired, green-eyed classmate-turned-superhero-turned-boyfriend in tow.

“So it wasn’t a dream,” he muttered, watching the receding shadow of Plagg’s body.

“Maybe we’re hallucinating? It can happen with sleep deprivation. Seen it myself.”

“I know you have, and I also need you to know that I am very concerned and we will unpack all that at a later time. But with both of us? At the same time? Seeing the same thing? I would think unlikely.”

“Mm, I suppose you’re right. Maybe we’re dead?” Marinette tapped her chin. “No, that doesn’t even sound right. That last akuma wasn’t _that_ dangerous.”

“You _were_ a little winded afterwards…”

Marinette shot him a glare that could cut clean through glass, incredulous at the betrayal.

“Hey! That was only a little!”

“True,” Adrien laughed, but it was good-hearted. “Mmm, how about poison?”

“Not possible. We ate at Papa and Maman’s last night, remember?”

“Oh, right.” Adrien sighed. “You think they’ll explain this…development? Growth? Can you even—you know what? Never mind. Do you think they’ll explain this thing without the whole cryptic, ominous speech and the classic ‘you’ll figure it out as we go along’ bullshit?”

Marinette yawned. “Mm, probably not.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I usually am.”

The smile he gave her was dopey with love and riddled in sunshine. It melted her cold exterior of having to face the morning so early, and sent an array of butterflies to swarm in her stomach. Even years after their partnership had begun, even years after they’d revealed their identities, and years after they’d started dating, Adrien still made her sink into a blissful excitement every morning. And she loved him for it.

He gave a lazy kiss to her cheek, and then his warmth was gone, replaced by the coldness of the morning breeze.

**06:36 AM**

Getting dressed was tiring enough. But walking into the kitchen and seeing the table? That was a lot to take in.

Tikki was sitting on the couch flipping through one of the books from the living-room shelf, chatting animatedly with Adrien while Plagg busied himself with the dishes, humming something that Marinette couldn’t quite catch before he turned around and playfully rolled his eyes.

“About time you got here—the food’s getting cold.”

Their dining table always had four chairs, because more often than not Nino and Alya joined them for lunch or dinner. This, however, was a whole new scene.

“You…did all of this?”

“We though we’d do a little thank-you breakfast, and explain the situation of our…how would you say? New looks, so to speak, while we were at it,” Tikki’s voice was smoother, a little deeper than before.

“Thank us for what?” Adrien asked, settling next to Marinette on the table.

“A ‘thank you’ for being such good chosens. Little bugs and kittens, etc. You know, the whole shebang.”

Adrien’s ears turned a cute shade of pink. So did Marinette’s cheeks.

“And this is the perfect segue into the next topic at hand: our new appearances.”

“U-um, how is thanking us the perfect transition again?” Marinette wanted to hide her face in her hands. Stuttering was bad enough when it was just with Adrien, and now with Plagg? And Tikki? If this kept up Marinette’s first destination would be jumping out the balcony of their bedroom.

“See, as the bond between the holder and kwamis grow stronger, you become generally more powerful. But the strength of that bond also benefits us too,” Tikki explained, putting a small omelet beside the croissant on Marinette’s plate. “The last time one of our chosens bonded with us strongly enough to bring about this transformation was more than a millennia ago. It might seem weird, to say the least, but we can be human when we have the need to be human.”

“Not to mention we can still phase through objects in this form, like so,” Plagg chirped from his seat, pushing his clean hand through the table.

“But there’s also a catch: this only happens when the use for us in our human forms will be greater than our use as kwamis.” Tikki took a glance at the intrigued duo before her before continuing. Her fingers, slender and elegant, gesticulated as she spoke. “We’re not…quite sure what or when exactly this event will be, what triggered our transformation, and whether or not the threat level will be high, but considering we woke up like this while you guys were out yesterday I’d be willing to wager that we keep an eye out for trouble. Especially seeing as things might get serious if this bond has been solidified so much between the four of us so quickly.”

Plagg nodded. “Part of our form speaks to how good of a chosen you both are, but another part also says that Hawkmoth is getting annoyingly good at his work. All we’re really sure of is that somehow we’ll be able to better aid you in these forms. As Tikki said, we’re not sure _how_ this will manifest itself, but it’s good to just keep an eye out for now.”

“I know it’ll take a lot of getting used to, and we understand if you liked us better as small inter-dimensional kwamis as opposed to our more, er, _intrusive_ selves.” The last part of small, as though Tikki didn’t want to put a possibility to it.

“No!” Adrien and Marinette surprised even themselves with the unison shouting.

“If this is just how it’s going to be now, then by all means stay this way. And if this will help us, then all the more reason to be human for now,” Adrien’s voice was stern and Marinette was so happy he was on the same page. She couldn’t imagine not letting Tikki and Plagg be in the most preferred version of herself.

“And we can renovate part of the living room to be like a bedroom of sorts? Our apartment is small but I know we can make it work.”

Beside her, Adrien nodded fiercely.

“Thank you, the last thing we wanted to do was intrude. I promise, we’ll go back to our more preferable selves soon, as soon as we fix whatever issue prompted our transformation.”

“Don’t say that, all of your forms are preferable,” Marinette winked. “And we’ll deal with whatever the issue is when we get there. Plus, now I can actually hug you without the fear of crushing you.”

“Marinette, I’m the kwami of creation, you couldn’t crush me, even if you really wanted to.”

“I understand but also consider: you were the size of my palm.”

A moments pause. Then, Plagg burst into laughter while Tikki, eyebrows raised, pursed her lips. “Hm. Touché.”

**SATURDAY  
** **November 9th  
** **19:01 PM**

The two kwamis got along with their friends and family almost frighteningly well, despite Adrien and Marinette’s fear that their names and sudden appearance would give away more than the duo wished.

Alya and Nino, naturally, had been the first to meet them when they burst in with the spare keys to the apartment. The scene they stumbled upon was confusing at best.

Adrien, clad in his ladybug pajamas, was knocked out on the lap of a woman neither Nino nor Alya could recognize, while a man of a similar state laughed quietly with Marinette from the kitchen.

“I honestly don’t want to know. Wait—No! _Plagg,_ what in the world are you doing? Stop! You’re supposed to knead the dough _a lot_ more harder than that, you absolute—” Marinette whispered, amused, demonstrating to the handsome black clad man.

“Alright, what the fuck?”

Adrien jerked awake, and Alya didn’t miss the slight paling of his cheeks as he locked eyes with Marinette, who simply looked like a deer frozen in headlights.

“Uh,” she chuckled nervously “Hello Alya, Nino, um, w-what brings you over?”

The girl in question simply held up two bags of take-out in one hand and another bag of face-masks in the other. And, if Alya hadn’t known her best friends so well, she’d think they purposefully chose to ditch their weekly movie night for whoever these people were. But she did know them well enough to know they truly forgot, and could see the sheer panic in their fleeting gazes.

“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” she started, quirking an eyebrow at the amused and relaxed foreign couple, so different from Adrien and Marinette, who both looked like they wanted to be buried alive. No, this new duo, older than both Adrien and Marinette from what Alya could tell, were suave and comfortable, with an air of wisdom that seemed a bit too heavy for bodies that didn’t seem a day older than twenty-five.

“I’m Alya,” she put a hand out to Plagg, who strut over with a towel strung over his shoulder. “And you are?”

He winked, taking her hand in a firm shake. “Taken by sugar-cube over there,”

Tikki rolled her eyes. “Ignore him, that’s Plagg,” she said, shooting him a glare before easing off the couch over to her and Nino. “And I’m Tikki.”

Marinette relaxed—she could always count on Alya’s easy-going attitude to dig her back out of her self-dug grave.

“Well, if I were him I’d begin with ‘taken’ too,” Alya laughed. “Nice to meet you, Tikki. I too am taken, by this dummy over here. That’s Nino.”

Nino tipped his hat. “Resident dummy, at your service ma’am. Nice to meet you both!”

The woman smiled. “Likewise,”

There was a moment of silence before Nino spoke up.

“So um, who exactly are you?”

Plagg shrugged, arm easily falling into place on Tikki’s lithe frame. “We’re close friends from abroad, only here for a few weeks according to our schedule.”

“Oh,” Marinette could tell that the cogs and gears in Alya’s brain were on fire and probably smoking from how aggressively they were turning. She almost intervened frantically when—

“So you travel a lot? For your job?”

“Yeah!” Tikki lied easily. Well, _technically,_ it wasn’t a lie. Not really, at least.

It was Plagg that picked it up after her. “We do physical training for celebrities, and just generally provide life-coaching. We were in the area and decided to drop by and make sure these two were still in shape.”

Adrien glared at Plagg, though the latter just laughed. “So yeah, lots of traveling according to wherever the talent is.”

Nino nodded. “Respect, man.”

“Well then, I guess you’ll be joining us for our movie night tonight? We’re gonna watch ‘Rubber,’ which is apparently a movie about a sentient serial-killer car tire, and I would _really_ love you to stay,” Alya pulled out the ancient DVD to receive an incredulous laugh from Plagg.

Tikki grinned. “You bet”

**SUNDAY  
** **November 10th  
** **00:19 AM**

“Psst…Marinette, are you awake?”

“Yes, Alya, I’m awake. Mostly because you won’t stop talking—”

“ _Tikki is so fucking hot_ , Mari. She’s so hot.”

“Yes, you’ve said so about four times tonight, Al.”

“Marinette her hair…and her voice…and _Plagg…_ How in the world did you befriend such attractive people?”

“They kinda just…found me?”

“I guess attractive people just naturally find each other, huh?”

Marinette blushed, though Alya probably couldn’t tell through the darkness. Maybe she could feel it through her heart though, considering Alya was sprawled all over her in classic sleepover fashion.

“This includes you, right?”

Alya scoffed. “Fuck yeah it includes me. I mean, have you _seen_ my hips?”

**Wednesday  
** **November 20th  
** **18:18 PM**

The first indication of the danger that Tikki and Plagg had warned about came at family dinner, when Sabine was loading Plagg’s plate with more cheese and Tikki’s with more sweets. It was not an unfamiliar sight, seeing the two hanging like shadows to one another, but Sabine and Tom had easily gotten used to it. There was simply something about the two of them—perhaps their intriguing closeness to Marinette and Adrien, or perhaps something else altogether—that made Tom relax. They seemed like good, kind people.

And that’s all anybody could ask for, really. Good, kind, respectful, and incredibly mischievous when the time called for it, though Tom would dissect and digest the quantity of pranks that have been going around the house at a far less tiring hour, in a far less crowded area.

“I think I finally pulled through on that one design that I’ve been stuck on, Maman,” Marinette said, reaching for the salt. “It took some time, but the stitching was just off. Once I fixed the material and the stitch pattern, it looked a lot better.”

“That’s wonderful darling—“

Sabine could say that she hadn’t seen the object that flew past their balcony (where they were currently dining), but that would be a lie. She could also say that she wasn’t intrigued at all by the four’s immediate distress, but that would also be a lie.

“Is that—?”

Tom observed as Plagg’s normally jovial and mischief ridden face melted into one of seriousness and what appeared to be traces of anger, and for a moment Tom was dumbfounded by just how powerful the man seemed.

“We have to go,” he said, and his voice was an octave deeper. “Now.”

“Oh! Uh, sorry Papa, Maman, but uh, we just realized that we all had to go! To the store! To buy…you flowers! All of us, at once! You know…as friends do?”

Sabine quirked an eyebrow. “Sweetheart, there are at least eight bouquets in the living room as we speak and that isn’t even counting the ones you bought in earlier today—”

“I’m so sorry Maman, but we really do have to go, we’ll be back as soon as possible when we’re done…shopping?”

Tom hadn’t really been able to say anything else, or even protest, for that matter, before Plagg roughly grabbed both Adrien and Marinette by their collars and practically shot-put them across the room with the speed at which he was attempting to match. Outside, whatever new hell Hawkmoth had concocted circled the air with a menacing breeze, but Tom was just a little too tired to care. He simply shrugged and took the dishes to the kitchen to clean them.

Ladybug and Chat Noir would fix everything anyway, so why bother to care, really?

As he left, Tikki sighed. This wouldn’t be good for their covers. She knew that Sabine knew that she knew that Sabine had already guessed that something was different—special, so to speak—of her children. And Tikki says children because in Maman’s eyes both Marinette _and_ Adrien were her beloved kids, but she digresses. The fact of the matter was that Sabine was suspicious, and Tikki couldn’t have the Dupain-Cheng’s suspicious.

Though she supposed that ten years of hero-work and not slipping up once until then was a pretty impressive track record.

Too bad it might end soon.

“Sorry about this,” she started, but Sabine just put a hand on hers and nodded.

“I understand,” Sabine said, and somehow Tikki was convinced that she really _did_ understand. After all, Sabine was no ordinary woman—with observational and analytical skills fit to match a professional, Tikki had observed with scary accuracy how frighteningly good Maman was at…well…observing.

“We’ll talk about this later, I presume?”

“Yes, I expect a call sometime soon to clear everything up.”

Tikki nodded, taking note. This would be a long akuma fight.

**23:46 PM**

“Your parents know.”

“My parents—wait _what?”_

Tikki placed the icepack over her cheek again. “I’m pretty sure your mom figured it out this morning when we left. She seemed pretty convinced, even asked for us to go back and explain everything.”

“Oh no, oh no, no, _no,_ this is not good, this is very much so not good, in fact this is terrible—”

“Hey!” It was Plagg’s hand that hit her (gently) upside in the head. “Breathe and pull yourself together, bug. Panicking won’t help.”

“I think I’m completely in the right here to be panicking when this could place hundreds of people in danger because if they figured out then _who else did_ and especially considering how cryptic you were trying to get us out of the room—”

Adrien sighed loudly from the sofa, where his arm was draped over his eyes to shield them from the white fluorescents of the kitchen. Under the cotton of his sweater he was wincing, and Marinette knew her spiral wouldn’t end well with him nursing a migraine. But anxiety was a thing attached too closely to her skin, and she felt herself hyper fixate on the act of solving this matter with as quick a time and efficiency as possible.

Akuma fights drained the heroes like over-used and abused batteries, and Adrien felt worse than over-used and abused at the moment. “He’s right, bugaboo. Panicking won’t help right now.”

“How are you all caring so little about this? Shouldn’t we be more worried considering that _my parents_ know our secret identities? As Ladybug and Chat Noir?” Marinette’s voice was clipped and cut short with exhaustion and annoyance, and she wasn’t thinking. Tikki tried to press the ice closer to her face again because, dammit, this would bruise if she didn’t, but her chosen just stubbornly pushed it away.

Adrien sighed. “I didn’t say that I didn’t care. I’m just saying that overreacting right now isn’t going to do anything—”

He bit his tongue, but it’d already slipped. He sighed some more, because Marinette didn’t deserve to be at the other end of his frustration, and he most certainly shouldn’t have treated her the way in which he did. But the word had already fallen from his lips, and though he nauseatingly choked down the rest, that one word had slipped through.

Understandably, Marinette was fuming.

“ _Overreacting_? Given the situation I really don’t think I’m—actually you know what? Never mind. I’m going on a walk. I’ll be back whenever.”

The deafening slam of the door made Adrien and Tikki flinch, and Plagg to sag his shoulders in defeat. She was right, they knew it, but they also knew she would need time to come to terms with the fact that doing this with anything short of a heavily detailed plan would be a suicide mission. But nonetheless the tired and heartbroken slam echoed throughout the small Parisian apartment for the rest of the evening, and even longer in Adrien’s head.

He didn’t sleep that night, because she didn’t come home.

And he could never sleep without her by his side.

**Thursday  
** **November 21th  
** **05:03 AM**

In the morning, Marinette was still nowhere to be found. And by this time, Adrien was in full panic mode himself, until Tikki pointed at their window and his eyes finally landed on the girl who was sitting on the fire escape.

He walked over, looking at her form. Marinette seemed tired—perhaps she’d slept outside on the latter, perhaps she’d crashed at Alya’s. Or maybe she just hadn’t slept at all. Regardless, the way in which she slumped forward convinced Adrien that she hadn’t gotten any rest after the beating they all received the night prior from a rather concerningly powerful akuma.

So hadn’t he.

With two cups of tea, one mug of matcha tea for himself and another mug of pure black tea prepared as Marinette liked, Adrien stepped outside.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she replied.

It was quiet, but with the way her arms tangled around the bars of the fire escape and the way her feet dangled off the edge, he could tell she was more dejected and tired than angry, as she was last night.

Adrien handed the mug over. She mumbled a thanks before taking a sip.

“I’m really sorry about last night,” Adrien started, because he owed her as much. But she just smiled in an almost imperceptible way that only he could catch, and held his hand.

“Thank you, but I think I should also apologize. I did overreact, and I thought more with my heart than my head, which is something I usually get mad at you for and yet I myself couldn’t _not_ do it. You didn’t deserve to be the target of my frustration and fear.” Marinette shrugged. “Guess I’m still learning.”

Adrien smiled. “We both are,” he said, voice soft and quiet. “Do you wanna talk about how we’ll address this with Maman and Papa?”

Marinette, not unexpectedly, shook her head no.

“I just want to sit with you here for a second. Is that alright?”

“Always m’lady,” he whispered. “Always.”

Tikki and Plagg watched from inside as the forms of two lovers melded into the shoulders of one another, overcome with exhaustion and too entranced by the kisses of the soft breeze outside.

With one look that spoke paragraphs and pages worth of emotion and words, Plagg and Tikki both agreed on the decision to let the superheroes sleep for a bit, both knowing that neither had gotten rest without the other by their side. They understood all too well, to be hurt and to be without your love—that amount of sorrow, both emotional and physical, didn’t overlap kindly.

Tikki took Plagg’s hand, and dragged him down to the sofa to lay down as well.

They could deal with everything else later.

For now though, they would rest.

**Sunday  
** **November 24th  
** **14:55 PM**

Explaining their _predicament,_ so to speak, to Marinette’s parents was a very interesting time, to say the least.

For one, Marinette had begun by making them swear to hear out their entire spiel before actually saying anything back, afraid that her parents would jump to difficult conclusions before fully hearing them out.

By the end of the entire explanation and confession of their hero-hood—which took over two hours—Tom just looked blankly and said: “We already knew. Like, before too.”

To which Marinette shrieked: “I’m sorry, _what?”_

“Sweetheart, you talked to your bag and disappeared exclusively when there was an akuma alert. It wasn’t too difficult to put two and two together,” Sabine explained, trying (and failing, miserably) to swallow a laugh. “I mean it was either that or you were slowly going insane, and that wasn’t something we really wanted to consider, you know?”

“Also despite the fact that you and Adrien were dating, I’ve almost walked in on you and Chat Noir way too many times, before you moved out. And see, as your Father I know you would never cheat, and I also know Chat Noir probably wouldn’t either. Ergo, Adrien was Chat Noir, and you were Ladybug,” Tom shrugged. “Easy.”

Horrified. She was horrified. No, maybe mortified would be a better word—whichever held more weight. Yes, Marinette was absolutely mortified, her blush reaching the tips of her ears as she buried her face in her hands. Her incoherent screaming was mostly indecipherable save the drawn out “ _Dad!_ ” she heaved, but otherwise she was moments from passing out due to embarrassment.

Tikki really didn’t want to laugh. But she laughed because _holy shit, this is hilarious._ Plagg elbowed her from the side, but he wasn’t faring any better, from the looks of it.

“M. Dupain, I’m _so sorry_ I really didn’t mean—”

“Son,” Tom started, hands in the air in that ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ way. “It’s none of my business. You’re dating, and frankly I don’t care nor want to hear more.”

Adrien quieted, shrinking next to Marinette who was still shrieking.

Sabine and Tom observed them in amusement for a moment before turning to Tikki and Plagg, who were desperately trying not to laugh.

“So, now that that’s settled, would you two like some tea?”

**Wednesday  
** **November 27th  
** **21:57 PM**

Having her parents know about them worked out a lot better than they expected. Now, they had two more people who could cover for them when the need for a quick escape arose, which, considering the growing number of powerful akumas as of late, was a very welcome change.

This time, they were chasing the akumatized form of a wronged welder, who was setting fire to most of the 14th Arrondissement of Paris. Ladybug was running across rooftops and nursing a severely burned suit—which somehow could just barely withstand the fire of the akuma, which was definitely an _unwelcome_ change—and what she assumed was a broken rib, meaning her Kwami-power indestructible-fiber suit was leaking damage through her suit and into her actual body. Her human and very much so destructible body.

In other, more mundane words, this was very, very bad.

Ahead of her, Chat wasn’t doing any better.

“I can’t see him!” Chat shouted from afar, his voice chipped and breaking from inhaling all the smoke. “I think he might be down by the—”

There was a burst of fire and Ladybug didn’t think, didn’t freeze. She simply threw herself violently into Chat’s side to knock him away, tackling him out of the range of fire that had incinerated everything that was in the spot they were previously occupying. He huffed in agony as her arm dug into the open wound on his abdomen, and she hissed as he protectively grabbed her and therefore hit her broken rib, but at least they weren’t on fire.

But not without sacrifice—her foot, which was now only a mess of red melted Kwami-fiber, was on fire and in a lot of pain.

She winced and Chat noticed, quickly carrying her to the side.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so,” she whispered. “I think we need some help, though. _Lucky Charm_!”

For once, Tikki hadn’t given her a riddle to work with. In front of her was a fire-extinguisher version of a flamethrower (ironically enough), and without another pause Ladybug pointed the weapon at the steaming welder and pulled the trigger.

In the few seconds of respite they were granted from the smoke and fire, Chat jammed his hand into the akuma’s welder helmet, _Cataclysm_ -ing the material to dust.

A butterfly rose through the dust and flame, and Ladybug tiredly snatched it with her yoyo. This was a new feeling, the nausea and the dizziness, but Marinette knew that she had to at least use her Cure before she passed out, if that was the end-route of her ailments. She just didn't feel well.

As soon as she saw the blue of the sky again through the black clouds, the little ladybugs stitching bone and concrete back to its original shapes alike, she collapsed brokenly to the ground and closed her eyes.

Maybe she’d sleep for a bit, seeing as her eyes wouldn’t stay open.

She felt very, very exhausted.

**22:04 PM**

To say that Chat Noir panicked would be the understatement of the century.

No, he didn’t just panic—Chat Noir was two seconds from a full-blown breakdown and the only thing keeping him together was Alya’s calm voice cracking through the dizzying frenzy of his mind.

“Just breathe, I’m sure she’s okay,” she said, though her eyes sang a different tune. On the ground, if she didn’t know any better, she would guess Ladybug was sleeping. But there was something off and eerie about her motionlessness, and this unnerved her some and Chat Noir even more.

“She doesn’t seem to have any more physical injuries by the looks of it, but…is there a place we could take her? I won’t look, I promise, but you should check if she’s okay underneath her suit…”

That wasn’t a half bad idea, except Tikki would probably kill him if they revealed themselves accidentally to Alya, of all people.

“I think that’s a good idea,” he said finally. “I’ll just—I’ll carry her to this, uh, this great bakery we trust a lot,” he coughed. This was a bad idea but Tom and Sabine, if nobody else, would know what to do.

“The Dupain-Cheng’s?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, before running off, Alya hot on his heels.

At the door, Tom and Sabine did their best to mask their faces of recognition, but thankfully their concern for Marinette trumped any other emotion that could be traceable on their features.

“What happened to her?” Tom asked, wiping down one of the tables in the back room so that Chat could set Ladybug down.“I don’t know! We did everything the way we usually do it but she just collapsed and I think she was hurt but the Miraculous Cure should have fixed her, I don’t know why she’s not okay—”

“Son,” Papa said, “You need to calm down, because if you’re not calm, we can’t help her, alright?”

Chat Noir nodded, though he felt more like Adrien with how lost he was. Maybe he did something wrong. Maybe he did something wrong and Marinette paid the price, somehow, without him realizing. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

His ring beeped frantically.

“I’m just—I’m gonna use the bathroom, please excuse me.”

In the two-some seconds it took for Plagg to disentangle himself from the miraculous, he was already panicking.

“Adrien, that’s not—that wasn’t normal,” he said, uncharacteristically pacing in the small bakery bathroom. “Tikki wouldn’t just collapse. We need to take off Marinette’s earrings and free her and Tikki to see what happened.”

“I know that but Alya’s here now and—”

“Forget her,” Plagg cut in. “It’s fine. Ladybug’s the guardian and I’m making the executive decision to reveal our identities to Alya. She’s the one with Trixx, right?”

Adrien nodded.

“Yes, but—”

“No, no buts. I need another kwami with me to help remove Tikki from Marinette and Trixx can help better than most. If that means Alya finds out in the process, then so be it.”

Adrien slumped against the sink, head hanging low between his shoulder blades. Behind him Plagg continued to pace, growing increasingly more stressed out as Adrien leaned silently by the mirror.

“I just don’t feel okay with revealing her identity without her consent, Plagg. You saw how she was when her parents found out, and I don’t want to make her more stressed if I can help it, okay?”

Plagg turned harshly around, his broad shoulders barely visible in their full size from the frame in front of Adrien, looking at him through the mirror in a way that made the his blood freeze.

“She might not be awake to even _be_ stressed if you don’t make a decision right now.”

That didn’t leave much of a choice afterwards.

**22:11 PM** ****

Adrien walked out of the bathroom transformed, because he thought that it would make the explanation a little more evident to Alya, who he feared would demand evidentiary actions.

“Alya, may I speak to you privately for a moment?”

She looked up from where Sabine and Tom were pressing a cool rag to Ladybug’s forehead, and followed Chat Noir to the cashiers.

“What’s up?” She asked quietly, and it was clear that she was nervous by the way she wrung her fingers together over and over again. “Is everything okay?”

Chat pursed his lips. “Not really. Under any normal circumstances this would be unacceptable, but seeing as this is nothing short of an emergency my kwami and I decided to tell you our identities. We need Trixx’s help and knowing us will help both of us in the future.”

Alya’s eyes widened. “I—I’m flattered but Hawkmoth already knows my identity, he _knows_ that I used to be Rena Rouge. Wouldn’t knowing who you are be putting you in danger?”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. “I promise you, it’s not going to make that big of a difference, you’ll see.”

“Do…do I know you? Outside of the mask, I mean?”

Chat nodded. “You do.”

“I’m not quite sure Ladybug would be comfortable with this, maybe we should wait—”

“Alya,” he cut in. “We might not have that kind of time.” His eyes said enough, though. Clearly he was as distraught as she was, and though the reporter wanted nothing _but_ to know the heroes as their civilian selves for her entire career, this wasn’t how she imaged it going.

“Alright then,” she said, and visibly braced her body. “Detransform.”

When the blinding light settled, and before her stood a boy and a kwami that quickly transformed into an all-too familiar figure, Alya was unsurprised to find tears in her eyes.

“ _Adrien?”_

He shrugged silently. “Surprise,” he whispered, but before he could say more, Plagg was already running towards the table where Ladybug lay.

“But wait, if that was Plagg, then the red-haired girl, Tikki, she’s—”

“Yes,” Adrien confirmed. “She’s Marinette’s kwami.”

“That…that actually makes a lot of things suddenly make a lot of sense.”

Adrien tiredly grinned. “I’ll bet.”

**22:21 PM**

"So I take it that she knows now?” Sabine asked, sifting her fingers through Ladybug’s frayed hair. Plagg simply nodded, staring quizzically at her body. There were some things you elaborated on, and others you didn’t, and he strongly felt that this landed in the latter of the two categories. The less she knew the better, though she already knew pretty much everything there was to know.

“She’d find out eventually, just like you did.”

“And Marinette?”

“We’re going to try our best,” Plagg was quiet in his speech but even quieter in his movements, startling Sabine when he came from behind her to see Marinette more closely.

In a flurry of orange, Trixx fluttered before the human-ized kwami, followed by Adrien and Alya slowly making their way to the brightly dimmed back room.

“Plagg,” he smiled, nodding in recognition. “I see you’ve upgraded,”

“You bet,” he half-grinned, though the emotion fell upon sad lips. “But we need your help. Ladybug collapsed after the fight and neither her nor Tikki have woken up since, and I’m not sure why. I’d try to pull Tikki out all by myself but she’s so far in that I’m frankly unsure of if it’ll even work,”

“Have you tried nudging the earrings, or pricking Tikki?”

“Yeah, both locked and unresponsive,”

Trixx flew to look more closely at the body, and as he and Plagg turned Ladybug over to her stomach, multiple things simultaneously came to view. Plagg could pinpoint with scary accuracy the exact moment in which he realized that Ladybug was _burnt._ Her entire back was bubbling and torn at the seams, and he couldn’t tell whether the red was of her suit or of her blood. And though he could’ve sworn that wasn’t there when he was carrying her to the bakery, he also couldn’t remember seeing her injured bad enough to collapse.

 _I’m doing exceptionally bad as a partner today_ , he thought.

“Oh—!” Sabine cried, and immediately Adrien took this as his cue to try (keyword here being “try”) take them out of the room.

“Sir, please let us handle this,” he said, but Tom was big and he was strong and easily evaded Adrien’s arm. “Papa we’ll take care of it, just please go upstairs for now—”

“No,” Sabine said instead, and the conviction in her voice was dripping with power. “I was a registered nurse for years, and I’m going to stay right here and treat my daughter and any of you who are hurt and you will not stop me, Adrien,”

Adrien wouldn’t stop her anyway, even if he really wanted to. She was a force to be reckoned with, as all the women in his life seemed to be, so he just sighed and moved to the side, watching as Sabine grabbed what looked like a first aid kit and gloves from one of their cupboards.

“I guess this is going to be a long night. Settle in, kids—I’ll warm up the oven for some bread.”

**23:00 PM**

They cleaned her back first, and though it looked like a nasty piece of work before washing her down, the burn wounds seemed significantly more manageable and superficial the more they attended and cared for them.

The initial panic had settled, but even forty minutes later, Ladybug was still knocked out cold.

“This isn’t working,” Adrien said, throwing another bloodied towel to the bucket by his foot.

“It is,” Plagg countered softly, a hand over Ladybug’s still forehead. “I can feel Tikki stir now. She’s waking up, but really, _really_ slowly.”

It was another fifteen minutes before Trixx said that he too had finally latched on to Tikki. The plan—which neither Adrien nor Alya really understood—was that Plagg and Trixx would use their links to Tikki to pull her out of Marinette’s earrings manually. A blessing of the Miraculous (but an obvious curse at this moment), their suits had multiple fail-safes that prevented them from simply taking her earrings off, and unless they tore them out of Marinette’s ears, it wouldn’t be possible to remove Tikki otherwise.

Of course Marinette could also simply activate her detransformation via verbal codes, but she was not conscious and therefore stuck.

“Shouldn’t her earrings naturally have run out of time? Like yours did?”

Adrien looked over at Alya, the observation settling in deep. “That’s honestly a good question. Plagg? Why hasn’t her transformation naturally worn off like mine did?”

Though he seemed to be concentrating, he still answered, albeit quietly. “Tikki is stuck somewhere inside, which is another fail-safe of the suit. If you’re in a situation where the kwami herself is about to lose consciousness and/or power, she locks herself inside the miraculous so that nobody can hurt her chosen when they’re both unconscious. This is her way of looking out for Marinette even though she herself was about to shut down.”

“But that seems a bit unnecessary, doesn’t it? She must’ve known that you and Adrien would be there to help her, right?”

“Yes, but she also could’ve panicked,” An owl outside cooed and Plagg sighed, his energy levels dangerously low as he pulled more and more strongly on the bond. “It takes a lot to panic Tikki,” he said quietly.

Nobody dwelled long on this revelation before Ladybug’s eyes and mouth flew open, red light shooting like lasers from her scleras. From her mouth came a low moan, a tired, exhausted sound that made Adrien yearn to hold her. His fingers itched, his heart beat out of his chest.She writhed in pain on the table before him and all he could do was watch.

Alya shrieked, jumping away from the table when Marinette jerked especially hard.

Her shoulders bucked for a moment on the table before she completely collapsed again, eyes closing and mouth going slack as her transformation dissolved away to reveal a battered Tikki and Marinette, the former of which fell off the table and directly into Plagg’s arms. Only him and Trixx noticed that she was crying, and that her breathing was barely perceptible.

For a moment it almost seemed like they _hadn’t_ been cleaning wound after wound for the better half of the past hour and a half, because both the women seemed to nurse their own areas of soreness, bruises, and cuts. But if this was anything like the burns, Adrien hopes that they too would be superficial.

(For the most part, they were not.)

Thankfully, though, there were no more burns. Adrien supposed that was _something,_ if anything at all.

“A-Adrien?”

He was by her side instantly, leaning over to plant a kiss on her forehead. “We’re all here, bugaboo,” he said. She nodded, though he was positive she wasn’t sure what she was nodding at, necessarily. Maybe fever-ridden moving, maybe just the need to move her head.

“Why do I feel so sore? And sleepy?”

He gave a wet laugh. “Don’t worry about that for now. Just focus on resting.”

It was when Alya squeezed her hand that Marinette grinned sleepily, wagging her pointer finger so slowly and languidly that it was almost as if she were intoxicated. “I know that you know, you know,” she teased, voice slurring and slow, as though she were drunk. “You’d find out eventually, I guess,”

Alya—who had been holding her breath since Marniette first opened her eyes—released all the air in her lungs.

“Asshole,” she said. “Don’t ever scare us like that again.”

**Friday  
** **November 29th  
** **10:18 AM**

Two days later, and Marinette and Tikki were both still in recovery.

Or, rather, they were forced into exile and physically stopped by either Plagg or Adrien if they tried to move or, God forbid, go outside. Even if “outside” only constituted to the balcony.

_“The wind could make your wounds worse!” Adrien had argued._

_“That makes literally no sense, Adrien,” Marinette had countered, looking at Tikki for backup._

_“No, no, he has a point,” Plagg folded his arms. “Let the boy continue.”_

_“Thanks, Plagg,” Adrien nodded in acknowledgment of his kwami. “You see, seeing as now you will both retain injury from our akuma fights and won’t be cured from the Miraculous Cure because of how much energy being in human form already takes from Tikki, which we already know she can’t really do anything about, you need to rest. Like, you_ have _to be in top-notch health so that you get hurt in the least way possible. So no wind. And to have no wind, you have to have no window. Ergo, healing equals no window.”_

_“Yes, so that means no going outside—including the balcony—no cooking because we’ll bring food to you, no getting out of the room without one of us here to help you walk, no getting out of bed without ringing the bell, and no going to the bathroom without informing—”_

_“I will literally throw both of you off the balcony, and then we’ll see if you remember what point it was that you were trying to argue.” Tikki had finally threatened, at which everybody withered a little bit before opening the window. But just a little. Not enough to really do anything, but it was certainly a start._

Their predicament was definitely a concerning one. For one, Marinette performed way too much parkour and stunts during their hero work that she knew for a fact that until they reached the crescendo of the events that have been building around them for a month now, she will just have to nurse bruised and broken bones to university and to work. Worst case, she goes into a coma, but considering she wouldn’t feel the consequences of her physical exertion, maybe that might be better classified as a best case scenario. The other best case scenario—the one that everybody collectively had agreed on—was that they don’t retain all that much injury at all, fix the issue, and the Cure goes back to affecting Ladybug as well because the issue that caused Tikki’s human-form would be effectively solved, giving her the ability to divert damage from—

 _Ouch_. Marinette’s head hurt from thinking too much.

They _would_ complain, but in all honesty they both felt pretty winded and wounded after Wednesday’s akuma, and for reasons they later discovered, it would be best that they rested anyway, so they stayed at home, and watched reality T.V. until they couldn’t think anymore.

Today was one of those days.

“I don’t know how you like this stuff,” Marinette yawned. Despite having her eyes closed, she could tell that Love Island’s latest season was on, and could also tell that Tikki was watching it with an intense interest that only paralleled Marinette’s deepest sewing evenings.

“I find that it’s a good way to learn more about humans,” Tikki shrugged, eyes not straying from the T.V. as she spoke. Plagg was laying in between her legs, his back to her chest and his head resting on her shoulder as she absentmindedly massaged his neck.

“Haven’t you learned enough from us?” Marinette teased, finally opening her eyes to look at her kwami.

Tikki sent her a glare.

“Do they always fall in love within seconds? I feel like it should take more time than that,” the older woman said. “It took me more than a millennia to get used to Plagg, and even then it wasn’t love yet.”

“Hey!” Plagg complained, but it was all good-natured. Tikki slapped his shoulder playfully, to which he purred.

“It’s not like you loved me immediately either,” she said. “Don’t go around misinforming people now, you stinky sock.”

He just nuzzled her chin.

“Hey, has Alya messaged you since Wednesday?”

At this, Marinette frowned, because while she was so busy with recovering and dealing with Plagg and Adrien’s (rather stupid) antics and shenanigans, she hadn’t realized that Alya must’ve been trying to contact her.

“She…actually hasn’t,” she said, dejection clear in her voice, fingers scrolling through her messages. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed.”

Plagg opened one eye from where he was laying down on Tikki’s chest. “So you’re _not_ mad that I took the executive decision to expose you to her?”

She glared at the kwami. “No, I’m incredibly pissed but my relief at being, well, alive trumps my anger by just a little bit.” She accentuated by putting her forefinger and thumb together incredibly close, almost closing the distance all together. “ _That’s_ how close I was to slapping the living shit out of you, Plagg, I swear. Because that’s yet _another_ person I have to make sure stays out of harms way.”

“To be fair, she was always at the battles anyway, so you won’t really be doing too much extra…”

“You know, shockingly enough, that isn’t making me feel any better.”

“I’m just saying that she would’ve figured it out sooner or later,”

“You’re _really_ not helping your case, Plagg.”

“Like, you’re just so bad at hiding your identity—”

“Plagg!”

“Yes, bug?”

“Kindly shut the fuck up, please.”

She’d expected a teasing scold from Plagg. What she hadn’t expected was both Tikki and Plagg simultaneously yelling “ _SOAP!”_ while hitting her with a pillow.

**Saturday  
** **November 30th  
** **18:52 PM**

Alya came the next day with a bag of takeout, a terrible movie, and an apologetic smile.

“S-sorry it’s just me…Nino’s at—”

“A D.J. competition in Lyon,” Marinette finished. It was her way of letting Alya know that she cared for them with every fiber of her being, cared and loved and paid attention to their passions and their interests, and that she was sorry for hiding her identity.

“I’m sorry,” Alya began, though Marinette felt like she should’ve been the one apologizing. “I’m really sorry I didn’t come until now. It was just…it was a lot to take in, you know? I had to let it simmer for a bit.”

Marinette bit her lip. “Do…do you hate me?”

“What?”

“For keeping the secret from you?”

Alya’s shoulders sagged, a soft smile donning her features. “The only thing I hate is how much you’re hurting, Mari. I was just shocked that you were out putting your life at risk to save the city every other night and still made time for all of us too. You’re truly a superhero,”

Their hug lasted exactly five minutes, not a second more, and not a second less. For five minutes Marinette cried unapologetically into the crook of her best friend’s neck and Alya let her, believing that there was more to unpack than even she could imagine. After all, carrying the weight of Paris since the early age of 14 to the ripe old age of 21 must not have been an easy task to carry, so Alya carried Marinette’s exhaustion for five minutes.

It was the least she could do.

**Friday  
** **December 6th  
** **01:02 AM**

The snow was beautiful, the way in which it fluttered down from the skies and settled on their bedroom window.

The curtains were drawn back, the only illuminating light source in the room coming in from the lamppost outside and the moon.

“I love you,” Adrien told Marinette, his head nestled comfortably in between her jaw and shoulder. “I love you,” he said again, leaving lazy kisses at the junction where her throat met her collarbones. “I love you so much.”

It was a quiet evening except for the sound of his kisses and her hums of approval.

“I love you too,” Marinette whispered, and in kind her fingers ran through his unruly blonde bed-hair, gently, ever so gently, pulling every once in a while. He purred—an artifact of Miraculous-hood, she presumed—and buried himself deeper into her neck.

“I’m worried,” she finally said, under the cover of midnight. “No, I’m scared, _minou.”_

He nuzzled his nose against a scar on her neck, tracing it lovingly. “Me too,” he whispered, “I’m scared too.”

“How are we going to defeat Hawkmoth if I…if I can’t heal?”

Instinctively, his body curled around her harder, his skin and hair prickling at the thought of losing her. It was the cat in him, he wanted to argue, but Adrien the Human had been as protective and as fiercely loving before the Miraculous as he was now. And Marinette…she was everything. She was the reason he woke up, the reason he was able to do everything he wanted to. Through her support he studied what he wished, through her support he fought for his independence from his father (though they were now long estranged, and he hadn’t heard from his father in years), through her support he made it through the dark tunnel that he hadn’t even known he was stuck in before.

He supposed the cat in him _did_ throw some gasoline to an already existing flame, though.

With his body enveloping hers like a blanket, she felt for the first time like she had all the time in the world.

“Bold of you to assume I’ll let you get hurt in the first place. I’d rather die than for something permanent to happen to you,” he joked, and though he tried to sound as teasing as possible, both him and Marinette knew that he was every bit serious. Marinette hated it whenever he said that—that he would _die_ for her—because, God, couldn’t he see that she couldn’t make it through without him either?

But instead of saying all that (and then some), Marinette just held onto him tighter, and kissed his forehead.

“You stupid cat,”

He smelled like lemon and lavender, cool and refreshing (mostly from his intoxicating body wash, which, surprisingly enough, _Plagg_ had picked out).

“Mhm. But _your_ stupid cat.”

She smelled like mint and chocolate (mostly from the croissants they had that morning, courtesy of the Dupain-Cheng bakery).

She smiled into his hair.

“Yes,” Marinette said, planting a kiss into the crown of his head sleepily once, twice, thrice. “ _Mine._ You’re _my_ stupid kitty.”

Time stood still, if only for love, and in the next room over, Plagg and Tikki unknowingly mirrored their worries and embrace.

**Tuesday  
** **December 10th  
** **13:39 PM**

“Hey bug?”

Marinette looked up from the kitchen sink, where she was in the process of kneading dough. “Hm?”

“Do you know any good restaurants around?”

This, you see, had infinitely piqued Marinette’s attention. “Why do you ask?” She teased, though she had an idea as to exactly why he had asked.

It was just fun to see the kwami of destruction writhe in discomfort.

“No reason,” he tried to dodge, but that stupid lovesick smile was plastered on his face and—ugh! Why couldn’t Marinette just leave well enough alone—

“I’ll give you some addresses,” Marinette said, returning to her dough. She might like teasing the kwami but as someone who was often on the receiving end of love-related peer pressure, she knew when to stop pushing it. “You can take my motorbike, I’m sure you already know how to drive it. It’s kind of like a horse, but with an engine.”

Plagg squinted his eyes, calculating and on the verge of laughter. “It really isn’t,”

Marinette laughed, flour all over her apron. “Yeah, but I couldn’t figure out another analogy for it.”

**18:41 PM**

When they’d first woken up as human, both Tikki and Plagg had taken a look around the internet (which they’d both seen Adrien and Marinette do on multiple occasions) and tried to figure out how to go about this whole business considering that it was the 21st century now.

After some time of research (that might have been a little unnecessary) they concluded that this would mean that money—which always seemed to run the show—was required for each kwami respectively, and that they would need to buy clothing that they felt represented themselves with the cash at hand. For one, this latter requirement was so that they wouldn’t feel the need to raid Adrien and Marinette’s closets, and for another, they simply wanted the experience of dressing in their own, aesthetic, so to speak.

And so, after several, very tiring tries, Tikki was able to summon a few hundred dollars that would do each of them some good for the time being (because seeing as this wasn’t akuma or danger related, her creation powers were at an all time low, and her human form drained her as is).

In the following few days, both had a small enough wardrobe to merge with their chosen upon returning to their normal forms, but also big enough to give them a choice in the say of what to wear.

And despite having known more or less what Plagg had bought for himself, nothing prepared her for the sight awaiting in the living room when she walked in, ready and beautiful in a small red sundress, for their date-night.

Plagg was…well, he was definitely incredibly handsome. His jaw and his face structure were attractive, sure, and his green eyes were, as always, very eye-catching (pun definitely intended), but it was his smile that made Tikki stop in his tracks. His soft, dopey smile.

And also his black combat boots. And torn black jeans. And his crisp, white button-down which juxtaposed his midnight skin so beautifully. Neons and bright colors looked amazing on him, this she already knew, but seeing his beautiful human form in beautiful human outfits did more for her than she thought it would.

“You look amazing,” he complimented, and for a split-second his eyes glowed a brighter green.

“So do you,” she said. “Very rugged but _very_ handsome.” She could’ve sworn he might’ve blushed. Then, teasingly she whispered: “I’m pleased with your attire,”

Teasingly he whispered back: “I aim to please,” which was loaded with way too many different intonations that Adrien and Marinette—who were both (unfortunately) witnesses to the exchange—screamed and pushed them out the door hurriedly in order to salvage what little was left of their blissful ignorance.

Marinette faux-gagged as soon as they were gone, making Adrien laugh in the way she loved to hear.

“Eugh, _kwamis,”_ she groaned, not knowing that the look she gave Adrien wasn’t any different than what they’d just witnessed. Maybe even more riddled in love and lust, in fact.

Later that night when they were giggling and recounting tales until two in the morning, they would remember that exchange at the door and sigh. Love was a beautiful thing, worth being patient for. And who was to blame them for being wholly, irreversibly, and deeply in love?

As Adrien fell asleep, he realized that despite his initial knee-jerk reaction, he understood Plagg’s dopey smile all too well.

He understood, Adrien realized, because he too wore one now.

**Thursday  
** **December 19th  
** **17:00 PM**

The knowledge that akuma fights could now leave Marinette hurt in real life was something that was not lost on anybody on the team, and those target to it. And though it wasn’t lost on any of them, the secret was kept so tightly that, sometimes, Marinette just wished the rest of them would forget and be unaware as well.

Because now, she was being borderline babied. It was well-intentioned, she knew, but not having the same flexibility to fight in battle—one, because her boyfriend would kick her ass and two, because she could actually get irreversibly hurt—was very, very annoying.

If she hated one thing, it was not looking strong in the face of danger. Because Ladybug was supposed to be the epitome of strength and power, and here she was, cowering in the corner, holding her arm which had twisted way too painfully for her to think.

But with her weakened suit—courtesy of Tikki’s human form, which, apparently they had some use for soon—she couldn’t really _do_ anything else outside of using her Lucky Charm and ducking back into relative safeness. She still jumped and flew from corner to corner, and even landed a few really good hits on this newest akuma, but nonetheless she still _felt_ weaker. And she hated feeling weak.

A piece of metal caught her attention. Hanging from the back of the gun that was morphed into the left hand of akuma was a small piece of silver hanging on a metal chain, almost like a necklace wrapped around the akuma’s wrist.

 _Bingo_.

“Chat!” She shouted over the sound of gunfire. “His wrist! It’s in his, _oof—_ ”

A bullet knocked her backwards, and her first thought was _red._

The feeling was very…new. They already got hurt during battle, and the exhaustion always stayed afterwards. But there was a distinct difference, Marinette was quickly learning, between the feeling of getting injured over the suit and _under_ the suit.

Because though the bullet had hit her shoulder directly, she felt the pain ring all through the right side of her body. The difference, Marinette noted, was that when the suit had properly absorbed the impacts and injury before, the only part of her that hurt was that specific, localized area.

Not her entire body.

And it certainly never sent her mind into a panic.

“Oh my god!” Alya shrieked, running over immediately from the sidelines. She dragged her away, the journalist’s hands wrapped under the arms of the superheroine, and Chat Noir, with anxiety ebbing at his features from having seen the exchange, continued the fight with tenfold ferocity so as to bring a quick end to it.

“I—I’m alright! I think? I think so, yeah,” Marinette argued, but she could barely keep her eyes open. “Oof. That shit hurts, like, a lot. Is it snowing right now? It feels really cold, suddenly,”

Alya, naturally stressed out of her mind, just placed her bundled sweater over Ladybug’s shoulder to absorb the blood and tried to ignore Marinette’s stream-of-consciousness level mumbling.

“Actually? No, I’m not cold, I’m just really, really sleepy…why am I always sleepy lately?”

This, Alya paid attention to, pressing harder on the wound which made Ladybug jerk in pain. “No sleeping!” Alya scolded. “Stay awake! At least until we get you to a hospital!”

“Hospital?” Marinette questioned, her words slurring. “No, no hospital.”

“Yes hospital, you big dumbass!”

Ladybug hissed in pain, biting her lower lip. From somewhere behind the wall that Alya held her in, she saw the telltale light of an akuma-detrasnformation and Alya thanked _God_ that Chat Noir would be here soon.

Ladybug noticed too, weakly catching the butterfly. There was none of her usual “gotcha!” or “bye bye little butterfly,” but that was understandable as she could barely think straight, or keep her arm in the air.

Then, even more languidly, she threw the unused Lucky Charm in the air. “Miraculous Ladybug,” she said, and though her voice was nowhere near its trademark jovial tone, it still did the trick. Most of her visible injuries were gone, and Paris didn’t look like a war zone anymore.

Then, a thought occurred to Alya: if Ladybug’s wounds were split into smaller, less serious injuries on both Marinette and Tikki once detransformed, standard logic would follow that this case would mimic the previous one.

Then, a second, more frightening thought occurred to Alya: if Ladybug didn’t detransform now, she might be stuck like this like last time, and that _really_ wasn’t something that Alya wanted to experience again.

“Ladybug, I’m gonna need you to detransform, like, right now,” Alya whispered, making sure that nobody was around them. Thankfully, the threat of gunfire had been ample reason not to go venturing into battle-territory, save Alya who was, as everybody knew, Paris’ best and youngest journalist to date.

“Why? Do you want to find out my secret identity? You know the rules about secret identities, Alya,”

Alya slapped her arm gently. “I already know your secret identity! Just do as I say!”

“M’kay whatever you say,” Marinette shrugged, though it was barely perceptible. “Tikki, spots off,”

As soon as the detransformation ended, Marinette looked infinitely better and a lot more coherent. She was still clearly winded and bruised and cut, but at least the gunshot wound on her shoulder was no longer there.

Alya sagged downward and exhaled deeply in relief and anxiety. This was…a lot.

Across her, leaning against the brick wall, Marinette shook her head and cleared her thoughts for a second.

From somewhere on the ground next to the super heroine, Tikki huffed, visibly trying to catch her breath. “I really hate this,” she groaned.

Marinette snorted, then immediately winced at the pain the movement brought, sorely rolling her shoulders. “You and me both, Tikki.”

**Saturday  
** **December 21st  
** **20:37 PM**

Recovery took a lot less time this time around, which Marinette was incredibly thankful for. And, unlike last time, Plagg and Adrien allowed them to get up and open the windows, which was an incredible improvement from before in and of itself. Granted, Marinette wasn’t sure if they allowed the windows because Tikki somehow privately threatened them, but regardless, she was thankful.

Marinette was currently laying on her bed, Adrien cuddled to her left side and Plagg and Tikki on the other end of the queen bed.

Suddenly, Tikki sat up.

“Wait,” she said first, on hand on Plagg’s shoulder to steady herself. “I’m dizzy, moved too fast, _God_ I hate human bodies so much—”

A moment, two, three passed. “Okay, I’m good now. I think I figured it out, why we’re human,” she looked at Plagg, who just gazed up at her expectantly from where he lay on the mattress.

“I was thinking a lot the other day, about how it was rather ridiculous that Marinette and I retained _so much_ of the injuries from battle. A few scratches would’ve been understandable but this just…it doesn’t make sense. The way that miraculous’ have worked all throughout time is that I give her my powers, and she channels them via her earrings to fight. She isn’t supposed to get hurt, because the miraculous, combined with my power, is supposed to absorb all the damage, right?”

Plagg nodded, deeply listening.

“Well,” Tikki continued. “What if it wasn’t just my own weakness that was causing the miraculous cure to shade over the two of us? What if it was because of your earrings?”

Marinette nodded, thoughtfully. “But they haven’t been damaged,” she said, her fingers feeling over the smooth ceramic. “Not only would I have felt that, but so would you.”

“Yes, but what if it wasn’t because it was damaged?”

Plagg frowned, eyebrows furrowing. “You lost me,” he said. “How else could the miraculous not work?”

“Have you felt a weaker connection to Adrien as of late?”

“Well, kind of? I can’t absorb all the damage either, but it isn’t anything close to you. Whatever the suit lets through, the Miraculous Cure heals, so I haven’t really thought about it too much,” he said.

Tikki nodded. “Remember Joan?”

“Joan of Arc?”

“Yeah, remember how something similar happened with us then, too? That was the last time we were humans, and we had trouble bouncing back from the injuries then as well.”

Her point didn’t seem to sink in, and Plagg just looked confused. “…yes? So?”

Tikki huffed, gesticulating wildly. “ _So,_ we had to merge with our chosens directly because the miraculous’ had been dulled, because as the guardian had said: it wasn’t that our powers were weak, we were just not using them in the way they had to be used in this form. As humans, the miraculous is not _needed_ anymore because there are _other_ ways to transform. We are too powerful as kwamis, but not so much as humans. So in order to reach our full potential, the Guardian had told us to merge not through the Miraculous, not through channels, and not through a portal. We were in our human forms because we had to merge our body with theirs—merge with them _directly,_ body to body and soul to soul. What if we have to do the same this time around? Why else would we wake up in this form, of all forms?”

At this, Plagg sat up, and Marinette could almost hear his thoughts piecing themselves together. “Yeah, but the threat was incredibly high, and we knew what to expect then,” he argued. “The guardian had told us exactly what to do and where to go. We’re just at a loss right now, though. There isn’t anything that’s driving us to a place or to a specific person. We’re just kind of feeling around in the darkness…”

Tikki nodded. “Yes, but next time there’s an akuma, be on the lookout. We’ll merge normally, but if we see that the battle escalates _,_ let’s agree to merge directly with Marinette and Adrien.”

Adrien, who had been on the precipice of falling asleep, perked up ever so slowly. “How would that work? What would change?”

Tikki grinned.

“When the time comes, you’ll find out.”

**Tuesday  
** **December 24th  
** **20:39 PM**

Unfortunately, the time came too quickly. Marinette’s body was still sore and hurting from the fight before, and she was almost too tired still to go and fight. But it was Christmas Eve, and she tried to pull some energy from that delicious feeling of home and family that lingered in the air. Maybe it would be alright.

They were all gathered in the Dupain-Cheng bakery, drinking eggnog and chatting after the evening dinner. It was a grand affair, really. Alya and her family, Nino and his family, Adrien (just by himself), Plagg, Tikki, and some other miscellaneous family friends were all gathered in their humble apartment-above-the-bakery, relishing the good mood.

Then the akuma alert went off—on tonight, of all nights—and though Marinette wasn’t religious, she almost cursed Hawkmoth for making her leave her family on Christmas Eve, of all eves.

“Oh!” Tom said, and him and Marinette locked eyes. “Marinette, we left something at the storage unit by, uh, you know where it is, don’t you? Could you go pick up our newest supply deliveries, I forgot to take care of that this morning and we should have them here by tomorrow morning for any orders. Take a few people with you, it’ll be a little heavy,” he lied easily.

Plagg nodded in thanks. Adrien held Marinette’s hand, and she dropped a kiss on her mother’s forehead. “We’ll be right back!”

She hoped at least her response wouldn’t be a lie.

As they ran out, she could hear Nino and some others questioning their rather quick exit. She also heard her parents and Alya changing the topic smoothly, and realized for the hundred-something’th time that them finding out had been the best thing to happen.

**20:45 PM**

Within only a few minutes, Chat Noir and Ladybug were standing on top of the Eiffel Tower, staring at the city below their feet. This was one of the few places they could scan the entire city, and now both the superheroes looked anxiously through every street to try and pinpoint where the danger would present itself.

From somewhere to the left of Marinette, she heard shouting and chaos, and not for the first time this past two months, cursed Hawkmoth for having revealed their team’s identities all those years ago when they were sixteen. And though Marinette had taken the executive decision to let at least Nino and Alya keep their kwamis, for fear that the need would arise should something happen to them, she also knew that calling on their help would advantage Hawkmoth too much in-battle.

So, while they _would have_ called for backup, there was nobody to call _for_ backup purposes.

And so, once again for the hundredth, nay, thousandth time in the past five years, they went to war alone.

**21:51 PM** ****

It had been a lie.

They’d been fighting for the better half of the past hour, and Marinette was trying her best to not pass out. For a moment she tried to think of what her parents were telling their guests about their absence, but decided not to dwell on it too much. Not right now, at least.

This akuma—a lonely man on Christmas Eve—had it out to divide families on what he had dubbed to be the worst night of the year.

Marinette couldn’t disagree, since instead of being with her family, she was battling this fool instead.

“I think it’s the ring on his finger!” Chat Noir called from a rooftop somewhere above Ladybug. “Could explain why he’s lonely! Maybe his partner left him!”

“Gotcha! I’ll be on the lookout!” She shouted back, ducking as a purple beam shot from his eyes. “I just feel like there should be a better way to get closer to him without getting hit than to just jump around!”

Chat rolled to the side, barely avoiding a beam himself. “I would agree, but I don’t have any other ideas. Lucky Charm?”

She nodded, calling for the charm behind a backlit alleyway. The balls of her feet stung, and her lower back felt a little too bruised, but surprisingly enough she was holding her own fine.

“A... _rope_?”

“Did you say rope?”

“Yeah! I just, I’m not sure what we can do with this, though?”

It was admirable how much Chat could divide his attention between listening to his lady and battling a literal demon-butterfly-infused-villan. “You’ll figure it out! I’m just—oop, not today, M. Lonesome! Sorry bug, but I believe in you!”

She huffed.

Figuring out what in the fuck the Lucky Charm meant had to easily be the most infuriating part of her work.

“I’m honestly just gonna take a straight approach,” she caught Chat’s attention, waving her hand. “Distract him!”

How he did that was…by grabbing a true-to-size Adrien Agreste cutout from the Gucci store nearby? Marinette had to take a moment, because that was all too much. But as much as it had confused and distracted Marinette, it had the same effect on M. Lonesome, so she guessed it worked out in some weird, twisted way.

“Look at me!” Chat shouted at the giant man. “I’m with my family! I’m having such a great time, and on Christmas Eve too! Sure hope nobody tries to ruin this for us!”

This seemed to do the trick, and more than needed at that. “Nobody has fun on Christmas Eve! Nobody!” The akuma growled, positively seething, as his eyes began to glow a stark purple once more.

“Now!”

Within seconds, Ladybug had looped and tied the rope around the torso of the man and Chat Noir, with the back of his un- _Cataclysmed_ hand, pushed the akuma’s face upward so the beam hit the empty nothingness of the evening air. Without missing a beat, he touched the ring, causing the silver to fall to dust and purple akuma to flutter out.

Just as she was about to grab the butterfly—completely failing to pay attention to the man they had apprehended—the end of a cane hit her point-blank in the sternum and suddenly she found that could not breath at all.

Breathless, and for more than one reason, Ladybug fell to her knees as tears from her lack of oxygen begun to sting her eyes. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe, _she couldn’t breathe, oh God she couldn’t breathe—_

As the crumbling form of Marinette gasped for air, Hawkmoth stood tall and proud before her. Quietly, his cane pulled back for another blow—one that landed directly in her abdomen.

She hadn’t thought it possible, but somehow the second blow hurt _more_ than the first to her chest.

“Fuck,” she hissed, doubling over on the ground, writhing in the excruciating agony that Hawkmoth had bestowed upon her. He lifted the ground-end of his cane and slowly begun to dig it into her throat, cutting off her windpipe. “Ch-chat—”

One look confirmed that he was being held in a chokehold by Mayura, who was standing somewhere in the distance behind Hawkmoth.

This could _not_ be how their careers as superheroes ended. _Frankly_ , Marinette thought, _it would be more embarrassing than anything else, but regardless, I don’t want to die. Not now._

Though she supposed that dying with her partner, her beloved Adrien, would be the more preferable way to go, if any, she was strongly opposed to dying _at all_ at this age. But she must admit, she couldn’t have imagined a better partner, nobody better to fight together with and bicker to, no better partner to kiss and to love, and no better partner to cherish. She loved Adrien with every fiber of her being, and in her last moments

The butt-end of a flute hit Hawkmoth in the head, knocking him out cold.

Marinette took back what she said. Rena Rouge, who was frantically trying to drag her away (and not for the first time this month) was definitely her favorite partner. With such good timing too.

“Ch- _chat_ —” she groaned, gasping for air. But the spot where her partner last was was empty now.

“Nino’s got him,” she hushed. “Detransform, now!”

Sure enough, upon detransforming she immediately gulped down delicious handfuls of air, free from the stinging nausea of several blows to her diaphragm. “Oh shit, that was bad, literally the worst,” Marinette heaved, hacking away at her lungs as the black dots in her mind begun to dissipate. “Hated that, _eugh_ ,”

Tikki was faring no better, coughing on all fours with sweat tinging her forehead. “This—this is when we do the thing I told you about, remember?”

All Marinette did was weakly mumble “okay,” before inching towards her kwami.

“Whenever you’re ready,” she said, eyes still teary, and braced herself for impact.

**22:15 PM**

Nobody could have been prepared for how incredibly powerful and mature Chat Noir and Ladybug looked that night. After watching on T.V. as their favorite superhero duo almost faced certain death at the hands of Hawkmoth and Mayura, seeing their return in upgraded, more sleek, and clearly more powerful suits was something that most had not expected.

But what _nobody_ expected was their glowing eyes, and the way in which their voices somehow seemed to echo and combine with a thousand other voices when they spoke. The pinkish-red that glowed from Ladybug made her seem like an angel of justice, and green that seemed to seep from every pore of Chat Noir’s body screamed destruction and chaos.

They stood ramrod straight, and every move they made was precise and determined. It was the eerie sort of fight, where Hawkmoth, uncharacteristically and rather frantically, tried to leave instead of fighting. He was terrified of the two heroes, this much was certain, and his cane trembled when he tried to land a hit.

Ladybug simply grabbed the point mid-away, and snapped his cane in half.

 _That_ kind of power.

“ _Hawkmoth_ ,” they both spoke in unison, a bellowing, ground-shaking octave that was never before seen. “ _We have judged you for your crimes, and convict you of the evilest of moral endeavors._ ”

“I just wanted to bring my wife back!” He cried, hands in the air, unaware that Mayura had long since collapsed somewhere afar.

“ _No matter, you have committed a sin against humanity, a crime never before attempted as you have attempted. Now step forward, and relinquish Nooroo and your miraculous.”_

The whole of Paris could pinpoint with scary accuracy the moment in which the villain caved. Hawkmoth, beaten and bruised for once as a change, cowered under the height of Ladybug and Chat Noir.

“Okay, but please, not here,”

Chat Noir glanced at Ladybug.

She nodded her head.

**22:27 PM**

Though Paris didn’t get to witness the fall of Hawkmoth, the entire city was lit in purple as he relinquished his powers that night. The cheers of excitement and tear-ridden relief could be heard from every neighboring nation, and though those in the bakery wanted to celebrate too, there was still something not quite right settling through the dust in the aftermath.

Not too long after, Ladybug came down from the roof of an abandoned building and announced, with Nooroo and the miraculous that it was over.Her eyes still glowed, and her voice was still different, but it was clear from the newfound fluidity of her body that she was slowly coming down from this upgraded state.

“ _Citizens of Paris_ ,” she announced. “ _As we promised all those years ago, Hawkmoth has been brought to justice. But due to the limitations and the side effects of the darker magic he wielded, we are unable to offer you the name of his person, because in our history, this man no longer exists. Upon giving up his miraculous, he himself became an artifact of time, and dissolved to nothingness. While this is in no way closure, we hope that his miraculous speaks to you enough, and that you know that you are safe, and as long as Chat Noir and I live, you will always be safe.”_

Though unbelievable, what happened to Hawkmoth was, in fact, true. Upon relinquishing his power, and before either Chat or Ladybug could see his face, he had crumbled into nothingness before them. A final act of self-destruction, they assumed, but it wouldn’t do too much to dwell on things that were out of their control.

With nothing else to do but take a breath and rejoice, they activated the Miraculous Cure, and the city seemed whole again. Families were wound back together after being hit with the beam of M. Lonesome (or akumatized Hawkmoth) and those hit were shocked to see that the long fight was finally, _finally_ over.

When the Cure swept over the midnight Parisian air, Marinette was relieved to find that she too was whole, and that things were, for once, going to be alright.

**EPILOGUE**

When Chat Noir and Ladybug flew (discreetly, though nobody was paying any attention from their own jovial celebrations of Christmas and freedom) into the attic bedroom room of the Dupain-Cheng bakery, nobody downstairs was any the wiser to the happenings turning upstairs.

Ladybug detransformed, positively trembling on her bed.

“It’s done,” Marinette whispered, latching to Adrien’s neck with a ferocity that he didn’t see unless he was hurt. “It’s done, _minou,_ we’re free…”

And he was crying too, sobbing, in fact, gripping to Marinette’s lithe body as he curled around her.

“I love you,” he whispered, kissing all around her face. “I love you, I love you, we did it, _we did it, we’re alive,_ oh, Marinette, I love you,” he cried over and over again.

This kind of happiness was uncontainable—it burst from every crevice and pore in his body, leaked from his eyes and ears, from his lips as kisses. His body could not handle all this relief and so he sagged on to her, sinking deeper into the bed as he held her.

“We did it,” he whispered, drifting to sleep. “My love, we finally did it.”

In the morning, Tom wasn’t the least bit surprised to find the two of them sleeping soundly on Marinette’s bed. The only difference he could see was that instead of a human Plagg and Tikki, two small creatures were bundled in the corner of her pillow, which he assumed would be their kwamis.

Tom wasn’t one to disturb sleep, so he gently closed the attic’s hatch and went back down the stairs. They had all the time in the world to talk, and he wanted them to get the years worth of sleep they’d missed due to akuma fights.

And also because he thought they looked rather cute when they were asleep, and not stressing.

Alya and Nino came later in the day, and Alya shook her head no when Marinette quirked her eyebrow at her. Together, they told Nino that they were the famed superhero duo, to which he just shrugged and said “we been knew.”

Naturally, Marinette screamed and really, _really_ didn’t take this well, especially with Plagg laughing hysterically in the background.

“Does _everybody_ know who I am? Did I say something? Did someone reveal me? _What is going on?_ ” She was right in her frustration, of course, but it was still hilarious to see.

“Nah, dude,” Nino reassured her, a gentle pat on the back. “Just me.”

Many nights passed before Marinette voiced her curiosity to her partner as they cuddled in their apartment.

“Who do you think he was?” She asked, crocheting a mini Chat Noir toy. From her lap, Adrien looked up.

“Mm, I dunno. It doesn’t matter, I guess,” he said, shifting ever so slightly so that Plagg and Tikki, who were napping in the pocket of his sweater, wouldn’t fall.

“I guess,” Marinette echoed.

Little did either of them know that Gabriel Agreste, who had shut down his company and devoted all his time into concocting the most powerful akumas from a lair unknown to anybody but his dead partner, Nathalie Sancoeur, was the infamous villain.

Adrien’s estrangement from his father would be the reason he didn’t go visit him, and the reason why he didn’t wonder why his father’s aggressive phone calls asking him to begin acting right and “fixing” his life randomly stopped. Frankly, he didn’t care to check.

Right now, as they laid on the comfortable, homey couch in their comfortably, homey apartment, there were no problems.

They deserved as much.

Adrien planted a kiss on her thigh, and Marinette pet his hair before resuming her crocheting, marveling at their calm domesticity without the threat of an akuma.

Yes, this much they deserved.

The rest they could deal with later, together.

Because it was Ladybug and Chat Noir against the world, as always.


End file.
